Hey guys - I have a question about hooking up a second display to my macbook air 2012.

When I use it as a secondary monitor (not mirrored), I can only fullscreen an application on the macbook screen. If I drag the window to the second monitor and click full screen, it goes back to the MBA screen and just leaves the gray mesh background on the secondary monitor.

Hey guys - I have a question about hooking up a second display to my macbook air 2012.

When I use it as a secondary monitor (not mirrored), I can only fullscreen an application on the macbook screen. If I drag the window to the second monitor and click full screen, it goes back to the MBA screen and just leaves the gray mesh background on the secondary monitor.

What gives? Is there a way to fix this? Why would they do this?

Fullscreen only applies to the main screen (the one with the menu bar and dock). You can make the external display as your main screen in System Preferences > Display > Arrangement. Then drag the little white bar from the smaller screen to the larger one. Your display will flash blue and the dock/menu bar will now be on the external. Now when you click fullscreen, it will fullscreen on the external.

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Originally Posted by talmy

I just checked here and it works as one would expect and not as you described, at least with Mountain Lion. The older 10.7 Lion would have performed as you described.

I can't think of something you might do. If no one offers a solution, you might want to contact Applecare.

Fullscreen only applies to the main screen (the one with the menu bar and dock).

As I said, "I just checked". I did it with Safari. I just repeated it with Preview and Quicktime.

You can make an app go full screen on the display it is wholly on, and the other one goes "fabric", even if it isn't the main screen. The menu bar actually temporarily relocates to the alternate display while the full screen app is running. This is a new feature in Mountain Lion.

As I said, "I just checked". I did it with Safari. I just repeated it with Preview and Quicktime.

You can make an app go full screen on the display it is wholly on, and the other one goes "fabric", even if it isn't the main screen. The menu bar actually temporarily relocates to the alternate display while the full screen app is running. This is a new feature in Mountain Lion.